Sunday, April 19, 2009

"Jingo slithered into the bar like a vaseline salamander in a sharkskin suit."

If he'll send me his postal address at detectivesbeyondborders (at) earthlink (dot) net, I'll send his prize: His choice of the copy of Farewell, My Lovely that gave rise to the contest, or Boiling a Frog, a novel by an author who goes over the top in a different way: Christopher Brookmyre. If he has those already, I'll send another book from the Detectives Beyond Borders Crime Fiction Collection.

Honorable mention goes to Adrian McKinty's "He stuck out like a reasonable man in the Fox News building."

Thanks to all for the verbal high jinks and for helping me clear a bit of space in my book-muddled house.

Dorte, your v-word is the utterance of someone who suffers a severe shock while asking for a prepared food having the consistency of custard, made from milk curdled by the action of cultures, sometimes sweetened or flavored.

One of my own touchstones for good critical writing, one that obviously will not have wide application, is that it can hold the interest of someone who would not ordinarily be interested in the subject.

I know it's going to come to me just after I post this, but who is your old pal RC?

And I thought I heard on someone's blog recently that the essential ingredient for a great critic was a black heart. That's the assumption I've been working under anyway. It seems a lot easier to achieve than scholarly application...

I think Patrick might have been fibbing a bit about the mast. You may hear from him once he gets over jetlag.

I had to think for a moment before realizing that our old pal RC is Raymond Chandler, who made critical pronouncements from time to time. One that sticks with me is his declaration that there had been no classics of mystery writing -- no stories or novels so good that no one could hope to better them. This, he wrote, left the field wide open.

Being bound to a mast is not much more confining that being jammed into an a seat on a modern passenger plane, I suspect, so the precise nature of Patrick's travel arrangements is a mere quibble.

I have, you are assured despite your doubt, been working like a whipped sled-dog here in Dublin, negotiating ocean, air and European trucking contracts for my high-tech, name-brand patron, in association with my Irish and Dutch colleagues, on a killing 5am to 11pm schedule that leaves little time for fun or romance, but I am now free, as of Thursday, for a long, long weekend of nothing but fun.

The people I have been jousting with in this venture are far more akin to Darkie White than they are to Bennet Cerf, and consequently the work is very much a labor, but I do love it. Odd what we find ourselves good at, and amazing what we will do do support the ones we love.

Only so, so appreciative that you liked my little sprig of sleaze, and the address has been sent in good faith of receipt of the promised RC.

Is there really a place called New Caledonia? Do the prhase "New Caledonia" stikes a familiar note?

You’re a horrible example of the last acceptable prejudice in America: anti-New Caledonianism. Yes, New Caledonia exists, and yes, there was an annual quota of four admissions from there, at least for the first few years of the so-called green-card lottery.

I hope you did not have to resort to Michael Forsythelike methods to achieve the desired results in your work. I plan to be in Northern Ireland soon, but my visit will be all play, no work. Ik vind Nederland ook leuk!

Your address has been noted and stuck to the book on a stick-on note so I can bring it to the post office tomorrow. Your winning entry was so good that I confess I did a search for it online to make sure you had not pilfered it. Congratulations again.

About Me

This blog is a proud winner of the 2009 Spinetingler Award for special services to the industry and its blogkeeper a proud former guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth. In civilian life I'm a copy editor in Philadelphia. When not reading crime fiction, I like to read history. When doing neither, I like to travel. When doing none of the above, I like listening to music or playing it, the latter rarely and badly.
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